“It’s just a minor ownership dispute!”

Who did anything in Einroguard belong to?

Perhaps this impossible question was one Einroguard’s mages would have to live with forever.

One anonymous lich insisted, “It belongs to the principal, as the lord of the place.” An anonymous half-troll professor argued, “Wouldn’t it belong to the one who takes care of it?” More militant students liked to say, “It belongs to whoever needs it.” But no final answer had ever really been settled.

And usually, the rule changed flexibly depending on the circumstances.

-Hold it. I claimed this alley first. If you want to pass, pay a toll.

-You lunatic. Are White Tiger Tower bastards knights or bandits? Attack!

-Hold it. I claimed this alley first. I repaired the collapsed passage here and regularly remove the traps that keep appearing. If you want to pass, pay a toll.

-Honorable White Tiger Tower student. I thank you for your labor. Here is the toll.

In other words, ownership was acknowledged to some extent depending on how much the other student had contributed and how solid the justification was.

But this mushroom cultivation field was a place where ownership had become especially tangled.

More than ten years ago, one upperclassman had accidentally discovered this patch where mushrooms grew on their own…

-Friends, I found a mushroom field!

-It even has mistcloud mushrooms?

-It does! We won’t have to go into Mist Mountain anymore!

-Wait. If it’s a field like that, other bastards might try to take it.

-Let’s work together and defend it. This mushroom field is ours!

A few years later, those upperclassmen graduated, and the field was passed down and divided among their juniors…

-I helped our seniors the most. I should get the largest section!

-What nonsense. Who took care of the mushrooms the most?

-Took care of them? They grow on their own if you leave them alone! Stop talking nonsense and divide it evenly!

Even the inherited sections became hopelessly tangled, and disputes broke out.

-This part from here to here is my territory!

-What are you talking about? It says this part isn’t.

-You forged it?! You bastard, you forged it!

-Excuse me, I have a question. I bought the rights to this mushroom field for twelve gold coins…

After forgery, fraud, theft, fighting, and every other kind of disaster piled up one after another, the mushroom cultivation field had become a bizarre piece of land with multiple owners.

“What kind of place even is that?”

“I heard Einroguard has a lot of places like that.”

“……”

Coming back down below the embankment where his friends were waiting, Lee Han stared blankly at Yonair’s remark.

“Well. Can’t be helped. I’ll have to rob it.”

“I knew that was what you’d say, Lord Wardanaz.”

For a moment, Lee Han found himself wondering whether he needed to have one honest conversation with Priestess Siana later.

She doesn’t think of me the way she thinks of those seniors in the <Teleportation> Club… does she?

He only moved items around for the sake of survival when he had no other choice, not because he enjoyed it.

…Probably.

“It’d be better to wait until night, right?”

“That’s the problem.”

“?”

“Alchemy lectures just started, remember? Everyone’s in the middle of gathering materials for the whole semester.”

“That’s true.”

“The upperclassmen know that too, so they’ll probably hold out there for a while.”

“……”

Lee Han raised his head over the embankment and checked again.

All sorts of signs of camping lay scattered around the upperclassmen, from sleeping bags to gear laid out for a long stay. It looked like they were ready to remain there for several more days.

“I didn’t want to attack the upperclassmen, but I need to think about how to avoid getting caught.”

“Shouldn’t you usually start by thinking about whether you can even win?”

Yonair stared in disbelief at his friend, who was already planning on the assumption that victory was guaranteed.

*****

Professor Mortum gestured with a cough.

“You may open the door.”

Creeeak—

The door of the bone carriage that had just landed in the spire stable opened, and out stepped a coughing mage.

The mage looked as sick and exhausted as Professor Mortum himself.

If there was one difference, it was that Professor Mortum was short, and this mage was tall.

“You still look unwell, Professor Taswan. I worry that your research into the temperance curse may simply be too harsh on a mage.”

“Cough. I am quite all right. The research into the temperance curse is more or less finished. The poor condition of my body is because of the curse Gonadaltes laid on me. The one from that gathering, after Kalarogard was called one of the Empire’s twin engines alongside Einroguard…”

“……”

Professor Taswan was a professor at Kalarogard, the magic school where the Empire’s dark mages gathered, and a distinguished dark mage in his own right.

And for dark mages of the Empire, it was difficult not to have some sort of connection to the Skull Principal.

The Skull Principal was the only mage to inherit the orthodox lineage of dark magic handed down from antiquity, and having helped shape the magical system of the modern Empire, it was impossible not to fall under that influence in one way or another.

The blow Professor Taswan had taken from the Skull Principal had come seven years earlier, at a gathering of dark mages in the Violet Mountains.

It was a merry, festival-like gathering known as <Night of the Dark Mages>, a delightful event where the Empire’s outstanding dark mages gathered, along with liches who prompted remarks like, “You were still alive?”

The Imperial Mage Marshal, visiting after a long absence, had made the celebration all the livelier with forthright critiques on every kind of hidden art and secret principle of dark magic, as well as on the spells of younger mages.

Professor Taswan, despite having a frail body worn down by long years of dark-magic research, had been so overjoyed that he downed cup after cup of vicious poisoned liquor.

And, in his drunkenness, he had gone and babbled this in front of the Skull Principal.

-Lord Gonadaltes! I am truly overjoyed. As a dark mage of Kalarogard, one of the twin engines driving the Empire alongside Einroguard…

-What did you just say?

Taking offense at the insult to Einroguard, and at the stupidity of it all, since any mage worth the name ought to judge things personally instead of believing foolish rumors, the Skull Principal had cursed him.

That curse still had not been fully undone, and so Professor Taswan remained in miserable condition.

“Professor Taswan. I do not know whether this will comfort you, but the principal is currently occupied. Most likely, the principal will not be able to see you.”

“That is wonderful news! Thank you, Professor Mortum. I feel life returning to my body already.”

The still-chilly spring night wind licked across the spire stable, and Professor Taswan shivered. Despite the heavy cloak layered with powerful cold-resistance spells, a chill still sank into his bones.

“Here. Have a cup of warm honey tea. My disciple made it.”

“Ohhh…”

Professor Taswan carefully accepted the cup and drank the honey tea. The hot golden liquid slid down his throat and warmed his body.

And that was not all. Perhaps alchemy had been used on it, because it even had a restorative effect. Professor Taswan asked in surprise,

“Did Diret make this honey tea? I had no idea Diret was so skilled in alchemy.”

“No. A new disciple.”

“I envy you, Professor Mortum. It seems another outstanding disciple has entered your hands. Einroguard truly does gather the finest talents in the Empire, so I suppose talented students enter the dark magic school as well… At Kalarogard, it is always difficult to gather disciples. Mine are diligent and talented, but hardly anyone new comes in.”

Professor Taswan shook his head as he spoke of the sorrows of being a dark mage.

Einroguard, perhaps because it was the Empire’s finest magic school, seemed to attract a fair number of gifted students even into the dark magic school.

Compared to that, Kalarogard had a truly hard time finding disciples.

A person both talented in magic and willing to devote themselves to dark magic was rather rare.

“……”

Professor Mortum hesitated, unable to tell the truth outright.

It was difficult to bring himself to say that even Einroguard had fewer than five new students in the dark magic school.

“Congratulations on having many disciples, Professor Mortum. Even so, the other dark mages will surely be pleased to hear it.”

Professor Taswan sounded sincerely delighted. At that, Professor Mortum squeezed the eyes shut.

At this point, the chance to speak honestly was effectively gone.

“…Where are your disciples?”

Professor Mortum changed the subject. Professor Taswan pointed toward the bone carriage.

“Inside. None of them have fully recovered from the poisoning yet, so it will take a little time before they are well enough to move.”

“I think it would be better ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) if you went inside and waited…”

“With my disciples here, how could I go in first?”

At Professor Mortum’s suggestion, Professor Taswan gave a kindly smile.

No matter how cold and miserable it was, he could not bring himself to leave his disciples behind and go in first.

At the sight, Professor Mortum grumbled inwardly.

This one is driving the average for professors far too high.

If someone like this raised the average level of decency among imperial professors too much, would that not end up hurting the other professors?

In a way, it was selfish behavior.

“…Very well. And the purpose of this visit is…?”

“First, the Mage Card Club exchange match.”

“That club again? I truly cannot understand why mages get so obsessed with it.”

Professor Mortum grumbled in disapproval.

He simply could not understand why students from another magic school would come all the way here just to play Mage Cards.

Professor Taswan smiled as if he understood perfectly well.

“I do not fully understand it myself, but it is my disciples’ hobby, so I let it be. If all one does is crack the whip, even the strongest horse will collapse easily.”

“The principal says one should whip a horse while it is running… No matter. And your next purpose?”

“Purchasing reagents.”

Einroguard was a place that purchased vast quantities of reagents, and at the same time a place that sold them as well.

With that enormous territory and that grotesque main building, how could it possibly not produce reagents?

Of course, because the school consumed them in such enormous quantities, they were not sold to outsiders lightly. Still, among the Empire’s other magic schools, exchanges of needed materials were common enough that it was permitted.

“Purchasing reagents… What do you need?”

“The cursed wooden barrels I mentioned before, poisonous insects, and mushrooms as well.”

“The barrels can be taken immediately. As for poisonous insects and mushrooms… there is no stock at the moment.”

“I identified a location eleven years ago! I intend to harvest them myself.”

“I see. In that case, I will assign a disciple as your guide, and you may gather them.”

Professor Mortum said this while moving a quill over the page, organizing the purpose of the visit in writing.

At that, Professor Taswan hesitated.

“Could it not be someone other than Diret? However you look at it, asking a fifth-year to do this sort of thing is a bit…”

“……”

This time even Professor Mortum felt a little reflective.

The other professor clearly had a point.

Then who can I assign… It is a shame Koholti graduated. No. Even if that one had not graduated, I would not have trusted that one with this. Ogoldos lacks finesse…

Entertaining visiting mages was even harder than entertaining ordinary guests.

Ordinary guests usually toured the safe parts of the school and then left, but mage guests went deep inside.

To host mages like that, one needed someone good at improvising and capable of keeping even Einroguard’s rougher students in line.

“Mm. I suppose I will have to assign Wardanaz.”

“There is such a student? What year is the student in?”

“Mm… Please do not misunderstand.”

“What misunderstanding?”

Professor Taswan laughed at the remark.

“So a third-year, then? That is fine. A third-year from Einroguard would be more than capable of serving as a guide.”

If the student was an exceptional one from the Empire’s finest magic school, then even a third-year would be enough for the job.

That was what Professor Taswan believed.

“Actually… a second-year…”

“????”